This passage beginning at verse
8 says, we have a little sister and she hath no breast. What
he's saying there, she's not come to maturity. She's not come
to full age. What shall we do for our sister
in the day when she shall be spoken for? And as I said, beginning
before the prayer, this most reputable gospel commentators,
and even many who are not so reputable, agree that what's
being spoken, the little sister here that's being spoken of,
refers to God's elect among the Gentile nations who as a collective
body, had yet to be brought to Christ. Now, salvation, we need
to understand that God's salvation has always been, and is now,
and will always be, by His free and sovereign grace in and by
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's never been a time when
salvation was by the works of man. Even under the Old Covenant,
the Old Testament, The old covenant, the law of Moses, was given to
show them their need of grace. It wasn't given as if God were
trying in that, as they say, in that dispensation. giving
sinners an opportunity to be saved by their works, and then
that failed, then he tries another. No, it's always been and always
will be, by grace, based upon, in the Old Testament, it was
based upon the future work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
Christ is all through the Old Testament. I was telling Sue
and Jimmy, I think after I finish today's lesson, I think what
I'm gonna do is go back through some of the Old Testament pictures
and types and just do lessons on that in our Bible study because
it's real interesting and I enjoy doing it and I know you'll enjoy
hearing it. But every book of the Bible, even the Old Testament
from Genesis to Revelation, it's a book of Christ. And it shows
forth, it sets forth the sure promise of God to save all of
his chosen people by his grace through the blood, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's never been any different
and it's never gonna be any different. But in the Old Testament, especially
from Abraham on, God determined in his sovereign wisdom and power
to work through a particular nation. And it was mainly to
send Christ into the world according to the flesh through that nation.
Christ was born, he was of the seed of Abraham, humanly speaking,
yet without sin, not born of man, but born of woman. by the
power of the Holy Spirit. And he came through that nation,
specifically the tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem, you know all
the history there. And then secondly, one of God's
purposes there was to preserve the gospel through that nation.
Now, we need to understand that God did preserve the gospel through
the Jews, through Israel, in spite of them. It wasn't with
their cooperation, because if you read the history, that 1,500
year period of the Old Covenant, beginning at Mount Sinai and
leading up to the coming of Christ, their history was mainly a history
of rebellion, idolatry, turning away from God. There were times
where you could say that the king, for example, And the majority
of the people turned to the Lord, but they were few and they were
brief. And that covenant was always meant to be abolished
by way of fulfillment. One of the things that when we
talk about what most people believe concerning dispensationalism
and all of that, When we say that the church, and this is
what's talking, this little sister here, who is this little sister?
She's the part, she's that part of the bride of Christ, the true
church that has yet to be, as he says, spoken of, spoken for. When will they be spoken for?
When God brings them into the kingdom, brings them into the
family, when Christ brings them into the fold. But they've yet
to be. And mainly, I believe, he is
talking about the Gentiles. And so, through that old covenant
period of time, the gospel was mainly contained to the Jews.
Now, it's not that there were absolutely no Gentiles saved.
We have an example of some of them who were saved. You think
about Rahab. You think about Ruth. You think
about the Ninevites. You remember Jonah and the Ninevites?
All of that, those are examples, but compared to the Jews, the
number of Gentiles who were brought to the Lord by his grace were
few. And that's why, for example,
when we see passages like Romans 1, 16, Paul says, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation,
to the Jew first, then to the Greeks or the Gentiles. In other
words, it came through them. And so one of the points that
Paul makes in the book of Romans chapter 11 is that we as Gentiles don't
need to be believing Gentiles. We don't need to be puffed up
against the unbelieving Jews because as earthly speaking,
I'm sorry to do this. Earthly speaking, as God worked
his providence, we derived much benefit from the Jewish nation,
and we ought to be appreciative of that, and mainly we ought
to desire their salvation. We ought to desire that God save
his people, and we know he's going to, and so that's one thing
that he makes clear that we as Gentiles, we need to understand
that even though God used them in spite of themselves, we still
derive much benefit from them. And what's the greatest benefit
you can think of that we derive from the Jewish nation? The Messiah. Christ was brought through. And
again, now it wasn't their power, wasn't their goodness, wasn't
their cooperation, it was all of God. But he did use them. And that's what I'm saying. So
he asked the question, the church, the bride, saying, we have a
little sister. She's not yet come to full fruition,
full maturity. What are we going to do for our
sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? God promised Abraham in that
covenant, you can read it back in Genesis chapter 12, that through
Abraham he would bless who? All families of the earth. So
the revelation of God's elect being made up both of his elect
among the Jews and the Gentiles is not new and it should not
surprise the Jews but You'll see if you read through the prophets,
prophets like Isaiah, they got into trouble when they spoke
of the future salvation of the Gentiles because the Jews resented
it. And so that's why you have the
struggle through the book of Acts, for example. Should they
be circumcised or not? A Gentile, you know, you remember
the first controversy that came within the New Testament church
was when certain ones who were Pharisees who claimed to believe
in Christ, but they came down into the church at Jerusalem
and said, now these Gentiles are being, they gotta be circumcised
first. And then you remember they had the council there. What
is that, Acts 15, I think? Where you had Peter stood up
and spoke, James stood up and Paul stood up and spoke. He said,
absolutely not. There's no condition placed upon
man that ensures their salvation. It's all of grace through the
blood of Christ. And that was settled. So prophetically
speaking here, this is talking about the church of God scattered
throughout the Gentile world. She's the little sister. That's
what I believe. And so God has a chosen people. Now, turn over to Colossians
chapter one. Let me read you a portion of
this. The apostle Paul made much of this. And he even claimed,
and he was right, that God had appointed him specifically to
be the main apostle who would reveal what he calls the mystery
of the church. And we call Paul the apostle
to the Gentiles. And listen to what he says here.
He says in verse 25 of Colossians 1. Well, let's read verse 24. He says, who now rejoice in my
sufferings for you and feel that which is behind of the afflictions
of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. So Paul's talking about his ministry
in the Gentile world to the church and he says in verse 25, whereof
I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God. This
is a segment of time that God marked out, which is given to
me for you to fulfill the word of God, even the mystery which
hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made
manifest to his saints. Now, it was hidden. And it was a mystery. But now it's become fully known. And he says, verse 27, to whom
God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, some translations
say among you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every
man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present
every man perfect or complete in Christ Jesus. where into I
also labor striving according to his working which worketh
in me mildly. So that's the mystery that was
fully revealed through Paul. of the salvation of the Gentiles.
And you know, in the early church, especially going through the
book of Acts, you know, many of, some of the apostles had
problems with it. Peter had problems with it. Remember
the dream that God gave Peter about the unclean things coming
down on the blanket? And Peter said, oh, I'm not going
to eat anything unclean. And God said, don't you call
unclean what I've cleansed. And specifically he was talking
about the Gentiles, because the Jews would say the Gentiles were
unclean. But God has a people that he's
cleansed among that group. And he says, Peter, go preach
to them. You remember who he sent him to right after that?
Old Centurion Cornelius of the Italian band. And so that's And
that was the controversy that Peter implied when he moved tables. Where was he at, Antioch? I can't
remember that. Remember, he and Paul were there,
and Peter was sitting there eating with Gentiles, and then some
from the Church of Jerusalem came down, and Peter got up and
left, and some left with him, and Paul withstood him to the
face. See, this was a real issue now. That's why in the book of
Acts, it closes literally saying that the gospel went out unhindered. In other words, there were no
barriers, no Jewish barriers, no ethnic barriers, no racial
barriers, sinners saved by grace. That's what this is all about.
So this is the little sister. And the day will come when she'll
be spoken for, when God will call them, each and every one
of them, by His grace through the preaching of the gospel into
the kingdom. What are we going to do for our
little sister? We're going to preach the gospel to her. We're not
going to burden her down with Jewish traditions or Gentile
traditions. We're just going to preach Christ.
That's how God calls His people. We're going to preach the gospel.
We're going to tell them about who God is in His holiness and
His justice. We're going to tell them about
who they are, just like us, sinners who need salvation by grace and
mercy, who cannot save ourselves, who cannot fulfill any conditions
to earn God's grace. We're going to tell them about
Christ. who he is, God in human flesh,
without sin. We're gonna tell him what he
accomplished, putting away the sins of his people by his bloody
death and establishing the only righteousness upon which God
can be just, to justify the ungodly. And if they're one of God's children,
if they're one of our little sisters, God the Holy Spirit's
gonna give them life. and give them faith to believe,
and bring them to repentance, and preserve them in the glory
of His grace. He says, look at verse nine now,
Song of Solomon 8. If she be a wall, we will build
upon her a palace of silver. And if she be a door, we will
enclose her with boards of cedar. Verse 10, she says, I am a wall,
and my breast like towers. Then was I in his eyes as one
that found favor. First, it starts out, I believe,
the bridegroom speaking, and he says, we, who's he talking
about? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Father chose us before
the foundation of the world and gave us to his Son. Make him
our surety, putting all the responsibility of our salvation upon his shoulder.
The Son agreed to be our surety and to do what was required and
necessary to save us from our sins. And He came into this world
and assumed sinless human nature, walked the earth, kept the law
perfectly, went to the cross. He died the death, even the death
of the cross. Having our sins charged to His
account, He put them away. He paid the debt. He satisfied
justice. He glorified the Father. brought
forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value which could
not be gained by our keeping of the law. And you know I always
thought it was interesting in Romans chapter 9 how Paul summarizes
or sums up the religious thought of the Jews who were lost. And
what did he say about them? He said they sought after righteousness. But they didn't make it. Why?
Because they sought it by works of the law and not by faith,
not by looking to Christ, who is the only righteousness. If
you're gonna find the perfection of righteousness, you can only
find it in Christ. So look to him and rest in him. And so what the Lord is speaking
of here is how he is building his church, if she be a wall,
We'll build upon her a palace of silver. You know, silver in
the scripture is symbolic of redemption. And that's what I
believe he's saying here. He's gonna redeem all of his
people. If she be a door, we will enclose her with boards
of cedar. That's safety. You know, you lock your doors
at night, don't you? Somebody said, well, back in
the 50s, we didn't do that. I don't remember if mom and dad
locked the doors or not. I don't think we did. But we
lock our doors because that's safety. Well Christ is the only
door into the kingdom and he's our safety. And so he encloses
us with boards of cedar. Cedar is always a picture of
strength and beauty in the kingdom of God. Remember the cedars of
Lebanon, we've spoken of them several times. So this is Christ
building, he said upon this rock I will build my church. And so,
and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And in verse
10, the bride then expresses her faith in Christ and the assurance
of peace with him. She says, I am a wall and my
breast like towers. Then was I in his eyes as one
found in his favor. You see, that's, I put in your
lesson here that that's similar to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 10. He says, by the grace of God
I am what I am, and his grace which was bestowed upon me was
not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet
not I, but the grace of God which was with me. We're secure in
Christ. He's our surety, he's our assurance. He's our safety. And so all of
this describes salvation for the people of God, both Jew and
Gentile. Now look at verse 11. Solomon
had a vineyard in Bahaman. He led out the vineyard unto
keepers. Every one for the fruit thereof
was to bring a thousand pieces of silver. And then he says,
my vineyard, which is mine, is before me. Thou, O Solomon, must
have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.
Now this is a little difficult here. But Solomon, as you know,
is a type of Christ. Christ is one, as he said, greater
than Solomon. And we know that this refers
to Solomon's position as king over Judah, over Israel. It certainly doesn't refer to
Solomon's character and conduct, does it? Because when you read
about Solomon, you read some pretty bad things. But Solomon,
in his position as king, the descendant of David, he's a picture
of Christ, and he's also a prophecy of Christ, because one greater
than Solomon is coming. And so, here, just as King Solomon,
he had a beautiful garden in a place called Balehammon. Well,
that must have been a beautiful place that he owned, and he had
a beautiful garden there. Well, the picture is this. Christ, the King of Glory, has
a beautiful vineyard, a beautiful garden, which is his church,
his people. We're called Israel, back under
the old covenant, was sometimes called God's Vineyard. Well,
that's a picture of the church. We are Christ's Vineyard. He
said, I am the vine, you're the branches. We bear life from the
vine. We grow fruit from the vine.
And so what he's saying here is, in this beautiful garden,
all sinners saved by his grace and blessed with the fruitfulness
of his glory, the fruitfulness of his righteousness that's imputed
to us. And the fruitfulness of that
is what? It's spiritual life. And this is something we need
to keep in our minds that the righteousness of God revealed
in the gospel to the Jew first and the Gentile also is not only
the ground of our justification and our right relationship with
God, it's also the source of spiritual life and all the benefits
and the blessings of God's grace. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And so here's his garden
made up of his church. And he talks about 1,000 pieces
of silver. I believe 1,000 pieces of silver
symbolically represents the entire company of God's, the redeemed
of the Lord, bought with a price. And what is that prize? The blood
of Christ. Redeemed, that's what silver
means. Remember the pillars of the tabernacle were set up on
silver. And that's what it is, our whole
salvation. based upon the merits of Christ's
death, his blood, his righteousness, and the work of Christ in redemption,
symbolized by silver, it can never fail to save his people,
all for whom he died, all whom he redeemed shall be saved. That's
his beautiful garden. That's his vineyard. And they'll
be saved and they'll be fruitful. Fruit of faith, fruit of repentance,
perseverance, all by the grace of God. Now he said here in verse
11, let me make sure I get this right.
He said it's let out to keepers. And who are the keepers? Well,
that's his ministers, his preachers, his witnesses. The vineyard is
his. It doesn't belong to the preacher
or to the minister or to the witness, it belongs to Christ.
but he's entrusted it to the care of God appointed and gifted
preachers and witnesses to go out and preach the gospel wherein
they will find his sheep and he will bring them into the vineyard.
He'll bring them into his church. He'll bring them into the kingdom,
which he owns. And it says, look here, here's
what I was trying to find. In verse 12, look at it, my vineyard,
which is mine, He owns it, is before me, thou, O Solomon, must
have a thousand. Now, understand now, a thousand
is what we call in the Old Testament is a Hebrew idiom, which means
a specific number that only God knows. And so I often use it
to try to explain that with the relationship between a husband
and a wife. and you love each other, and
the husband may say to the wife, I'll love you for a thousand
years, you know. Well, somebody said, well, some
women, that might make them mad. Why not a thousand in one year?
Why not two thousand? Well, a thousand is a way of
expressing some infinite number that only God knows. And that's
what he's saying. The point here is this, that
he's gonna have them all. everyone whom God gave to him.
He said, all that the father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out, and this is the will of him that
sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. But he's entrusted
this to keepers, and it says here, now this is where it gets
a little difficult. He says, O Solomon, this is verse 12,
must have a thousand. He's gonna have all his people.
and those that keep the fruit thereof, 200. What does that
mean? Does that mean that some of the
glory goes to Christ and some of the glory goes to his ministers?
No. What I believe it's talking about
is that we're not gonna have any personal glory, but we do
share in his glory as the ones whom he redeemed, as the ones
whom he saved by the grace of God, When God brings us into
the kingdom, we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So all glory, laud, and honor
goes to him. But we share in it as participants,
and I believe the next verses will tell us about that. Look
at verse 13. He says, thou that dwellest in
the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice, calls me to hear
it. What does he mean for Christ
to hear us? Hear our worship. Hear our praise. Hear our glorying in Him. Paul said, God forbid that I
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
these companions are those to whom the ministers of Christ
preach the gospel. We're all together. We're in
fellowship. And they're brought by God to
hear and believe the gospel. We're ambassadors of Christ,
we beseech those, be ye reconciled to God on the basis of his righteousness
imputed. And so when we come together,
what do we do? We cause him to hear it in this
sense. We praise his name. We glorify him. And he receives
it. It's a sweet-smelling savor unto
him. And so he ends it this way, look
at it. Verse 14, make haste my beloved,
be thou like to a roe or to a young heart upon the mountains of spices.
I believe that's the church calling for him to come. In the Old Testament,
it's the church looking for his first coming. Like a young roe, like a young
heart, these speedy animals. And so those in the Old Testament,
they're praying for his first coming. Send the Messiah. And
he came. Those of us in the New Testament,
we're praying for his second coming. Come quickly, Lord, like
a row and like a heart, upon the mountains of spice. That's everything that speaks
of the aromatic healing properties of the presence of Christ, because
what's he gonna do when he comes, what did he come in his first
coming to do? To put away our sins. That's
the healing that we need. I'm gonna talk a little bit about
that in the message today, the main message. And what's he gonna
do when he comes a second time? He's gonna burn this world up
and make it anew. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. All
right.